Let's Go, Lacy!
by Horthien
Summary: Lacy Loud is a star athlete for her school, yet her parents rarely take the time to come to her games. She begins to wonder why. (Threeshot)


_Luan Loud,_ thought Lisa, _you are insufferable._

Luan was twenty-eight years old - _twenty-fucking-eight_ \- and, for whatever baffling reason, she _still_ thought it was funny to pull shit like this. Lisa was standing under the doorframe to her lab-slash-bedroom, and was covered in water. Head to toe, she was _soaked._ The scientist dripped onto the carpet.

To add insult to injury, the empty bucked above her - the bucket that had just dumped its contents onto Lisa when she opened her door - wobbled. Lisa didn't notice, but it was a miracle that it was even still up there on the thin top of the door. Quickly, however, it slipped, and fell off. Lisa heard it coming and looked up, but it was too late; before she had time to react, the empty metal bucket hit her square in the face.

She swore and faltered backward, cursed loudly, and then rubbed her face, a natural reaction to the stinging pain.

" _Luan!_ " Lisa bellowed. " _Show yourself!_ " She around the hallway. Luan's old bedroom door opened, and Lisa expected it to be Luan, but it wasn't; it was Lacy, her niece.

"Aunt Lisa?" she asked. "Have you seen my lucky soccer ball? I know it's not soccer season, but that ball -"

" _No_ ," snapped Lisa. She was cold, wet, and angry. Couldn't Lacy see that? She didn't know where her niece's fucking _soccer ball_ was. She had bigger things to worry about.

"O-Oh," Lacy whimpered, walking slowly backward. She turned around, and went away. "Sorry."

Only after she was gone did Lisa realize that she may have been a bit too rough on her niece. She was only asking a question, after all.

Right now, Lisa could march off, find Luan, and get even, _or…_

She could make things better with Lacy.

She briefly debated it in her head, and sighed. Family comes first. She'd get even with Luan later.

* * *

A knock.

"Come in!"

Liby turned away from her easel and looked at the door. Maybe it was her roommate, Lyra, coming in. She doubted it, though; Lyra had a late practice right now, and she didn't miss _those_ for anything. Maybe it was Leia; she _always_ wanted something for someone, and somehow, she always found a way to get it. Maybe it was Maybe it was just Auntie Leni, confused and going to the wrong room. That happened sometimes.

The _last_ person she expected it to be was Aunt Lisa, but as it turned out, that's exactly who it was. She walked in, and closed the door behind her. Aunt Lisa noticed the canvas that Liby was currently painting on.

"Art, huh?" she asked.

Liby nodded.

"When did you start doing _that?_ "

Liby had first begun to take an interest in painting just last summer. She had practically _begged_ her mother to send her to a weeklong standup camp. Money was tight, though, so Mom had presented her with an option: either go to art camp, the only one she could afford, or not go to camp at all.

As it turned out, Liby actually kind of _liked_ art. Not _all_ art, of course (she bombed at pencil sketching, ruined her clay fish by dropping it on the floor during sculpting, and somehow managed to even completely fail at using basic photoshop) but painting, Liby found, was something she actually really liked to do. Granted, she wasn't head over heels with it, and it wouldn't become her new 'thing' ( _that_ was reserved for standup), but she would start to do it on a regular basis whenever she could find free time. Living in a family as big as hers, though, she knew moments like those would be few and far in between.

Aunt Lisa looked at her progress. Liby was in the early stages of painting, but her aunt could make out what she was going for; a painting of an early morning on a farm. In all honesty, it wasn't half bad.

"Hey," she asked. "Have you seen Lacy's lucky soccer ball anywhere?"

Liby thought for a second, then shook her head. "Can't say I have. It might be around the room somewhere, though. Look around."

Lisa nodded, and began her search. She checked the closet, then behind Lacy's desk, and then got down on her hands and knees and looked under the bunk bed. Lisa looked all over the room, and made sure to be through.

Still, nothing.

Lisa shook her head in defeat and left the room, closing the door behind her. In the hallway, she looked around at the various doors to the bedrooms. It could be _anywhere_ in this house.

She sighed.

Better get looking.

* * *

"Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Jones."

Lacy Loud exited the car, and then watched as it drove away under the streetlights. She checked her watch. It was almost ten at night.

She shivered in the December night, and came into the house only to find it empty, as it was most nights after late practices. Her family was _big,_ and to keep order in such a large family and prevent things from falling apart, rules needed to be strictly enforced. One of those rules was that all children needed to be in bed by 9:30 on school nights. Many of Lacy's aunts obeyed this rule, too, because if they didn't get their sleep when everyone else did, it would be _impossible_ to catch up later because of all the noise. Her siblings weren't especially noisy (well, except for maybe Leia when she got mad and screamed), but, obviously, Lacy had a lot of siblings, so there was a lot of noise.

With all of the children that there were in the family, it was hard to get a ride. Out of all nine of Lacy's siblings, only three were old enough to drive, and only two actually had their licenses - Loan was too mentally unfit to even try. Sure, Lacy sometimes asked her aunts for a ride around town, but paying the bills and all of the other expenses that came with twenty-one people living under the same roof certainly was not cheap. Most of the Loud adults worked jobs and kept long hours. So, after most practices, especially after most late practices, Lacy had to carpool with one of her friends. Tonight, Lauren Jones' mother had been nice enough to help her out.

As per usual, Lacy waltzed into the kitchen to find her dinner wrapped under aluminum foil. She peeled it off, and put it in the microwave. She then turned around, planning to turn on the television and find something to watch while she ate (one privilege of coming home late was that you got to the television all to yourself) but jumped in fear and almost yelled - Aunt Lucy was standing right in front of her.

Lacy clutched her chest and felt her heart beating fast. "You _scared_ me," she said.

"Sorry," her aunt said in monotone. "I was just getting a cup of coffee. Didn't mean to startle you."

Lucy then walked past Lacy, who was still standing paralyzed with fear, and went to the counter, turning on the coffee machine. Lacy's family had a _lot_ of weird habits (Aunt Lisa often rattled off all of the possible ways that the family could die while traveling, Loan sometimes bit her hand in an attempt to stop it from shaking, Leia spent sometimes _hours_ using a lint brush to go over her clothes to get them perfectly spotless), and Aunt Lucy was certainly no exception. She drank coffee almost every night (black, of course - always black). Apparently, a lot of people drank coffee during the nighttime, but Lacy had never actually known anyone but her aunt to actually do it. Doesn't that stuff keep you _awake?_ Isn't that the _point?_

Shrugging, Lacy started to make her way to the living room.

"Wait," said Aunt Lucy. "Are you going to watch TV?"

"Uh, yeah."

She shook her head. "Sorry, Lace. _Bloodthirsty Politicians_ is on tonight, and I can't miss it."

Lacy almost began to protest, but the words died on her lips. Aunt Lucy was an adult (though, often didn't act like it) and protesting her decision would be pointless. So, like a good jock, she said nothing more.

The microwave beeped, and Lacy walked, defeated, to get her meal. Pork loin omitted with lime jello, instant mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. She studied her dinner and noticed that, 1: Mom forgot to not put gravy from hers (she _hated_ gravy), 2: Mom forgot to give her the _chunky_ version of cranberry sauce, which she perfect infinitely the chunkless version, and 3: little effort was taken to separate the foods. They all merged together. Ick.

She was a good jock, though, and a good jock takes whatever dinner their parents prepare for them. She wasn't around when they were cooking, after all, and she didn't help. Lacy didn't pay any bills, either. Her parents had taken the money and time to make sure she had something to eat tonight, and she was thankful.

Sometimes, though, Lacy wondered what it would be like if they paid attention to her just a _little_ more.

She went to the back of the kitchen and then made her way down the basement stairs. Many nights, this is where she ate dinner and even fell asleep. She was considerate, and didn't want to run the risk up waking up her roommate, Liby, by going in late. She was a light sleeper, and _hated_ being woken up. It was difficult for her to fall back asleep, she said. Remember, in _this_ house, you got at much sleep as you could - it was very unlikely that you would be able to take a nap to catch up.

She sat down on a beanbag chair (last year, a few bean bag chairs had been purchased at the request of Lizy for her birthday) and began to ate. The food was cold - Lacy hadn't put it in for long enough. She didn't want to go back upstairs and reheat it, though. It would be quicker just to quickly eat it. Like a good jock, she did so.

She did so most nights.

Little did she know, upstairs, Lisa was _still_ looking for her soccer ball.

* * *

It was winter, and snow coated the ground For as far as the eye could see, Royal Woods was covered in one big, white blanket. Tree branches danced in the breeze, sometimes rubbing against each other like the antlers of two bucks fighting for dominance. These branches, too, were covered in white.

For Lacy Loud (who, currently, was looking out of the living room window), when it was too cold for any other sport, winter meant one thing: basketball.

Basketball was one of her favorite sports. She loved the intoxicating feeling of feeling invincible, dribbling the ball and running down the court too fast for anyone to catch her. Call her crazy, but in those moments, felt a special connection with the basketball. Even when being attacked by multiple opponents, Lacy felt like she was unstoppable; she was the court's favorite player, the best at feeding the ball into its circular mouth.

"Yo, Lacy."

She grumbled.

"Lace?"

She brought her pillow over her face.

"Lacy. Wake up."

Reluctantly, Lacy sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. In front of her stood Lemy. Right behind him was his friend… what was his name again? Lacy couldn't remember. She had sleep brain.

"Lacy," said her brother, "me and Bigs were going to play basketball in the driveway. Can you come?"

Oh, _that_ was his name. Bigs was a friend of Lemy. He was a black kid who was short and chubby. Bigs was eleven, two years older than Lemy, yet Lemy was still a bit taller.

"Why so _early?_ "

"It's already almost nine. You coming?"

Lacy was torn. She loved basketball, but she loved to sleep, too.

Oh, fuck it.

Basketball.

The wind was harsh and cold on Lacy's skin as she went outside. She considered going back in and getting a coat, but realized that she'd warm up once she started playing. She ran down the porch, and across the grass, making footprints in the snow, and finally to the driveway. Only then was it that she noticed a problem, a problem she was surprised that she didn't think of before.

She looked at her brother. "Uh, Lemy?"

"Yeah?"

"It snowed last night, so…?"

"So…?"

She pointed down at the driveway. "So, the driveway is covered in snow. We can't play basketball."

He shrugged, then went over and grabbed a shovel that was leaning on the side of the house. He threw it to her, and she caught it.

"Better start shoveling."

Lacy shook her head back and forth, her ponytail whipping violently in the crisp morning air. "No no no, you said we were coming out to play _basketball_ , not clean the driveway."

Next to Lemy, Bigs grabbed a shovel and began to work.

"Well," said Lemy, "we'll just clean this up real quick and then we can play, okay?"

Lacy was about to throw the shovel down into the snow, march to her room, and retire back into the comfort of her blankets, but before she did so, Dad appeared on the porch. He leaned on the side railing, a cup of coffee (or was it hot chocolate?) in his hand.

He took a sip. "I'm really glad you're helping your brother with his chores, Lacy," he said.

"But…" the words died on her lips. Lacy sighed. _Fine._ She'll shovel the damn driveway with Lemy and Bigs.

She didn't have a jacket, and it was cold, but Lacy didn't bother going inside to get one. She'd work quickly, then she could start playing basketball and warm up. The snow was wet, and _heavy_ as a result. Just halfway through the job, Lacy's arms were becoming to grow weak. She began to grunt with each shovel load.

Lacy looked over her shoulder. Neither Lemy nor Bigs were working; Lemy was resting on his shovel and talking to Bigs, and Bigs was sitting on a snowbank, looking on his phone.

"What the hell, guys? Aren't we supposed to be _working?"_

Lemy groaned and reluctantly shoveled a load of snow, and slowly so. " _Sorrrrry,_ " he said in a tone that made it clear that he was not. "I need a break every now and again, you know. I'm not a robot."

 _You're not 'taking a break',_ Lacy wanted to say, _you're just not working,_ but she kept her mouth shut. At this point, she just wanted to get the job done. The prospect of playing basketball galvanized her enough to do so.

Finally, the driveway was clean. Lacy wiped the sweat from her forehead and threw the shovel into the snow near the side of the house.

" _Now,_ " she said, "let's play some ball."

Lemy rolled back and forth on the heels of his feet and looked away from Lacy. "Yeah, about that, uh… well, me and Bigs were sort of planning to play some one on one."

" _What?_ "

"You can't really play basketball with three people, Lacy." He paused; Lacy looked at him with murder in her eyes. "Sooooo…" He motioned with his hand for her to shoo.

The front door slammed open, and many of Lacy's sisters and aunts turned their heads at the sound in fear at the sudden, loud noise. She stormed right past, up to her room.

"Lacy!" cried Aunt Leni, "What's wrong?"

Lacy said nothing. Her feet hit the ground _hard_ \- so hard, in fact, that Lacy was almost certain that with just a little power behind her steps, she would break a stair. She didn't care, though. Rage intoxicated her and hot tears watered her eyes.

"Lace!" cried one her of sisters, but she didn't know who; her hearing was going blurry. "What's going on?"

She opened her door so hard that it nearly broke off its hinges when it slammed against the bedroom wall. Liby, who was at her desk, jumped in fear. She turned around.

"What's _your_ problem?"

Walking to her bed, Lacy threw herself down onto it face first. She said nothing.


End file.
